Chinese President Hu Jintao attends the Group of 20 summit in London, Britain, April 2, 2009. [Photo: Xinhua]

Chinese President Hu Jintao on Thursday called on the international community to join hands to tide over the current global financial crisis at the second Group of 20 (G20) financial summit in London.

As the financial crisis continues to spread and deepen and its impact on the world's real economy becomes increasingly evident, the international economic and financial situation remains complex and grave, Hu said.

The Chinese president called on the international community to strengthen confidence to confront difficulties.

"We have the enabling conditions to tackle the financial crisis," Hu noted, saying that the world economy is "on a solid material and technological footing."

The world has far more macro regulatory tools than before and also the common will to enhance coordination and cooperation, he added.

"As long as we strengthen confidence and work together, we will tide over the difficulties and achieve our shared goals," said the Chinese president.

He then urged the international community to further intensify cooperation to fight the crisis as no country can stay immune from the crisis.

"The only right choice is for all of us to work together and deal with it," he said.

Hu described the G20 as an important and effective platform for concerted international efforts to counter the economic and financial crisis.

At the summit, the Chinese president also called for advancing reform of the international financial system, saying the world should work together to build "a fair, just, inclusive and well-managed international financial order."

Hu also stressed opposition to protectionism. "We should work together to oppose trade protectionism in all manifestations and reject attempts to raise the market access threshold under various excuses and all forms of investment protectionism that harm the interests of other countries," he said.

The Doha round of global trade negotiations is crucial to global trade liberalization, he said.

In his speech at the summit which gathered leaders from major developed and developing nations, the Chinese president urged further support to developing countries in time of difficulty.

He called for minimizing the damage of the financial crisis on developing countries and urged the world community, developed nations in particular, to assume due responsibilities and obligations.

They should "continue to fulfill their commitments to debt reduction and aid, take concrete measures to maintain and increase assistance to developing countries, help them uphold financial stability and promote economic growth," Hu said.

Speaking of the impact of the crisis on China, Hu said the global financial turmoil has brought unprecedented difficulties and challenges to China.

In order to combat the crisis and maintain steady and relatively fast economic growth, China has made timely adjustment to its macroeconomic policies, swiftly adopted a proactive fiscal policy and a moderately easy monetary policy, and formulated a package plan to expand domestic demand and boost economic growth, Hu said.

"China will continue to work with the rest of the international community to enhance macroeconomic policy coordination, advance the reform of the international financial system, maintain the stability of the multilateral trading system and contribute its share to world economic recovery," Hu told other leaders attending the summit in London.

At the summit in London, leaders of the G20 reached consensus on how to save the world out of the financial crisis, including a pledge of 1.1 trillion U.S. dollars to revive the world economy, a joint call to fight protectionism, and concrete actions to tighten banking regulation.

Among the additional funds to be injected into international financial institutions, 500 billion dollars will go to the International Monetary Fund to support lending to countries hit hard by the crisis, 250 billion dollars will be used to support a new Special Drawing Rights (SDR), 100 billion dollars will support additional lending by the multilateral development banks, and 250 billion dollars will be devoted to guarantee trade finance.

The G20 leaders agreed on extending regulation and oversight to all systematically important financial institutions, instruments and markets, including systematically important hedge funds for the first time.

They also agreed on extending regulatory oversight and registration to credit rating agencies to ensure they meet the international code of good practice, particularly to prevent unacceptable conflicts of interest.

The leaders reiterated their opposition to trade protectionism and their readiness to boost global trade and investment.

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